haunted by horror

a reflection on my experiences with the horror genre and why i have become so fascinated by it in my 20s

Possible spoilers for Gerald’s Game (2017), It: Chapter Two (2019), The Menu (2022) and assorted other horror films

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When I was in third grade, I went to a birthday party where we watched Poltergeist (1982). I had never seen a PG-13 movie in my life, I had never liked scary movies or Halloween, and I had never even been to this girl’s house before. I remember playing in her basement - she had an air hockey table - spending the whole party up until this point thinking I did not belong there, and then someone popped the VHS into the player (I cannot recall if it was actually VHS or if we’d moved to DVDs by then because it was 2003) and made the announcement that this was what we were watching.

And then I decided I really didn’t belong there.

Poltergeist (1982)

At first I told myself and everybody else that I couldn’t watch Poltergeist because my parents didn’t allow me to watch PG-13 movies. But deep down, I knew that I really just…did not want to watch it. It sounded horrifying. It sounded outside my comfort zone. It sounded like I would end up having nightmares. But nobody listened to me.

For whose who have never seen this film, and especially for those who may never see this film due to it’s scary content, I’ll use my favorite horror film technique and direct you to the Wikipedia page. (I would like to point out, in hindsight, when I watched this movie again in 2020 at the age of 25, I decided it isn’t all that scary due to the 80s effects of its time. How anticlimactic.)

Even as the opening scenes started playing, I was squirming. I tried to get someone to turn it off, to watch something else, to tell them that I was not okay with this, but all the girls from my class assured me that everything would be fine. I could handle it.

Cut to some minutes later after the evil clown puppet makes an appearance.

I am in tears, terrified and upset and ready to go home. This girl’s mom comes downstairs (to bring popcorn? to check on us?) and immediately comes to my rescue. She takes me upstairs to her own room where she puts the Amanda Bynes Show on the TV and there I sit, alone, trying to calm down. I can’t remember if I told the mother to call my own mom. I can’t remember pretty much anything except Amanda Bynes.

I don’t know how long I sat there, I don’t even really remember what episode was playing, but eventually I think the girls downstairs started to feel Bad that I was upset. I can’t imagine what went down in my absence, whether they laughed at me or rolled their eyes or all collectively shared a sense of guilt at pushing me into something I wasn’t ready for. All I remember was feeling alone. But somebody must have felt something because the whole party made the trek up to my safe haven to check on me.

Then and now I would not consider any of those girls my friends.

This night has haunted me all my life, and even though I do feel like I’ve dealt with a lot of the horrors that came from it, I think it’s something that will stick with me until I die. For six months after the incident, I could not fall asleep without my mom reading devotions to me. I had to turn on instrumental CDs to lull me to sleep. I slept with a night light and the doors open. I refused to watch scary movies. I hated Halloween even more vehemently than I did before. And I avoided Poltergeist for a very long time, convinced it was the scariest movie ever made.

It might surprise you (or maybe not) to know that as an adult, I’ve become fascinated and enamored by horror as a genre. Now I’ve seen a wide variety of horror films and shows, read a few horror novels, and I am always on the hunt for the next life-changing scary story. I credit this almost exclusively to Mike Flanagan. (And my own stubborn perseverance and curiosity.)

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The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

In 2018, Mike Flanagan released his first ever Netflix series. I had never heard of him as a director, and I barely had any context for the show itself. When it first came out, all I knew about it was that it was terrifying. People wrote headlines that the show was the scariest thing they’d ever seen, that it made them vomit with fear.

Naturally, I thought to myself, Huh, maybe I need to check this out!

Unclear how my brain came to this conclusion.

Not only was this unfounded due to The Incident, but by that time, I had grown accustomed to having night terrors. To this day I’m not sure if my hallucinations are a result of being scarred as a child or if they were bound to show up regardless, but whatever the cause may be, I suffer from seeing strange things while I’m half-awake. I wake up screaming, I see people in my room trying to kill me, I get the foreboding sense that if I do not move things off my floor immediately, the room will flood. You know, totally normal brain behavior. So why was I drawn to a horror show?

For better or for worse, I spent two days by myself binging The Haunting of Hill House. I still do not know what compelled me to watch, but that curiosity changed my life. Hill House has not only become my favorite television series of all time, but it’s encouraged a fascination with horror and a passion for the Flanaverse. I found that I related to so much of the series. Nell in particular made me feel seen, if only because she had trouble sleeping in the same way I did. I adored the story, the characters, hell, even the horror. While it was a little spooky, I did not think it was the scariest thing ever made. Had I gotten braver? Or was everyone else just lying?

I had to admit…I was very confused. Horror had caused me so many issues throughout my childhood, so why now did it speak to me? I still get scared. I still refuse to watch certain horror films (sorry, Midsommer). I still don’t overly enjoy a majority of the horror movies I’ve seen. And yet…something shifted. Maybe it’s because I’m older, maybe it’s because I’ve seen more real life horrors now, or maybe I can finally discern the Art that lives underneath the horror genre. I’m still not sure. But for whatever reason, now I am a Horror Fan.

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It Follows (2014)

During my last semester of college, I spent a weekend at the beach. It was January, so definitely still winter, but I took on a paid video project in 30A and drove down with my friend and one of her friends. The weekend itself was relatively uneventful. I shot a music video for a guy, we spent a few hours laying out in the sun, and in the evenings we watched movies in her family’s condo. In another unsurprising turn of events, I found myself roped into watching a horror movie.

This was in 2017, over a year until my Hill House awakening, so I was still weary of horror as a genre. While I could handle myself much better than when I was eight, I was not entirely thrilled about watching It Follows. I’d seen the trailers, I knew the overall tone. It was not something I expected I’d enjoy.

And true, at the time I think I was sufficiently freaked out. It’s a very strange movie, and the whole premise is that the monster gets passed around based on who you have sex with. (Clearly, the perfect scary movie for someone like me who does not want or plan to have sex.) But for whatever reason, it stuck with me. I think about that movie more often than I ever thought possible. And when I rewatched it years later, I found that it’s actually one of my favorite horror movies, if only because it’s such an artistic film. It compels me.

That in itself is what drives my interest in horror. Curiosity. Horror always felt taboo to me, either because it was regulated by my parents or because I had barely been exposed to it, so now as I’ve gotten older, it’s like being let in on a secret. I can finally watch Jennifer’s Body or Scream or Halloween after more than a decade of seeing these movies referenced everywhere. I want to know why everyone thinks something is fucked up. I want to know how grotesque the world can be.

Because in actuality, I think I have a very strong stomach. The world has shaped me into someone stronger than I ever imagined, and now in a lot of circles, I’m braver than my peers. (Did I have to mute The Invisible Man a few times when I watched it? Yes. But that’s besides the point.) I’m still a bit of a weenie, but I’m learning that actually, a lot of people are not capable of handling horror content. Many people flat-out refuse to engage with horror.

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The Menu (2022)

I think there are many misconceptions about horror as a genre. Often people will claim to hate horror and to avoid it at all costs (much like I used to), but the truth is that horror itself has many different subgenres. It’s easy to say you hate a movie like Saw with a lot of gore. But do you feel the same way about a suspenseful movie like A Quiet Place? What about a monster flick like Alien? Are you scared of psychological thrillers like The Invisible Man? Or maybe something like Get Out? There are scary movies about the supernatural, movies about violence, movies about things you can’t explain, movies about being trapped somewhere, movies about ghosts… the subgenres of horror are so numerous that I’m convinced you could find a horror movie for just about anyone. It feels like a copout to opt-out of all horror movies or books or stories just because you don’t like a lot of blood.

But part of what changed my mind about horror in general is that there is a subgenre of horror movies - and it’s a very broad subgenre because I think many, if not most horror stories can fall under this category - that have an underlying happy message underneath. While there are horror movies that end badly (many of them do), there is so much hope buried in horror. I think some of the most moving pieces of art fall under the horror genre. This is mostly because horror movies frequently revolve around the idea of survival, of getting out of the scary situation. More than that, a lot of the people who make horror are actually very sweet individuals who are writing about the indomitable human spirit and the power of love. That’s difficult to see when you’re watching some guy’s head get chopped off.

If you take horror at face value and choose not to analyze it or engage with it deeper, you’re missing so much potential. I am so passionate about Hill House because it’s a story about addiction and family and mental health. It is a story about friendship. The Others is all about family. The Haunting of Bly Manor is about love and grief. Nope explores the power of spectacle. Midnight Mass has a lot of commentary on how religion can be harmful and how Christians aren’t always Christ-like. I love The Menu because it’s a story about how capitalism and rich people can corrupt the world. Yes, it’s terrifying to watch a bunch of rich people essentially be murdered at dinner, but some small part of you gets a thrill from knowing those evil rich people got their comeuppance. (Oh and also, didn’t that cheeseburger look delicious?)

You’re missing out on a lot of art too. I think some of the most talented creators and artists work on horror content. I’m mostly thinking about film here, but even something like Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky has a lot of artistic merit. Creepy as it is, the score for It Follows is one of my favorite scores because it does its job so well. The Newton Brothers’ work on Hill House is another example of a beautiful score. I think horror actors - young and old and everyone in between - are some of the most talented people in Hollywood. Mia Goth’s work in the X series. Christian Bale’s work in American Psycho. Lupia Nyong’o in Us. Isabelle Adjani in Possession. Not to mention the work of designers - costumes, sets, sound, etc. The cinematographers. The screenwriters. Often horror asks for impossible things, and only people with magic can fully embody those works, even if it’s for something as simple as being stuck inside a house.

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It: Chapter One (2017)

On the one hand, if you’re a true lover of horror, you can appreciate even bad horror movies. Sometimes the point of watching a scary movie is just to be scared. Sometimes it’s just to watch some fucked up shit, to watch humanity be grotesque. Sometimes horror movies are just a place to explore violence in a controlled environment.

I know I am not a true horror fan - if only because I have very little knowledge on the subject and yes, I am still Scared - but I think a lot of people underestimate horror and write it off because they have not tried to engage with it further than a brief glance. People have a hard time engaging with horror but horror often does a great job of making commentary on important topics. Horror is a great place to explore anger, fear, violence, and all the darkest human emotions. For as horrifying as it is, and as unsafe as it is for our characters, I’d argue that horror is actually a safe space. There is no judgement there like there is in the rest of the world. In most settings, anything goes. Nothing is off the table, for better or for worse.

Watching horror movies can be unsettling - some might even say triggering and traumatizing - but I think if you know your limits you can face a lot of your fears through these stories and you can find peace in unexpected places. When watching Hill House I was comforted by the fact that my experience with night terrors (while dramatized in the show) is not an uncommon occurrence. (Although admittedly, the Moonlight Man in Gerald’s Game did freak me out because what if the person I see in the corner of my room is actually a real human person someday…) When I saw It for the first time I was comforted by the fact that you can survive anything with friends by your side, and sometimes the key to survival is actually just yelling derogatory things at a clown. The more I watch horror movies, the less fear I have. I can handle more and more as I’m exposed to more horrors. I don’t get so upset by jump scares. I am growing desensitized to certain elements of gore. I’m more able to look past the fear and find the themes and commentary underneath.

I think being scarred by horror at such a young age, it gave me a reason to grow. In some ways, I think I became a fan of horror out of spite. I refused to feel as afraid as I did on that night I watched Poltergeist. I refused to allow myself to be overwhelmed by my fear. And even though I spent a lot of time cowering and allowing myself to be afraid as a kid, I do not let it control me in my twenties. I am actively working through the anxieties I have, and weirdly enough, I think watching horror movies and shows has been helpful. Sometimes the only way you can overcome your fear is to embrace it and jump head first into the deep end.

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For anybody who’s curious as to what horror movies I think about regularly, here’s my favorites list. I’m not convinced that all of these are genuine horror movies, but fuck it, we ball.

Also, since we’re talking about horror, I have read House of Leaves. That and Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky are two of my all time favorite books and they’re creepy as hell.

Please please please recommend your favorite horror content below!